


just keep on ignoring (be a good little trout)

by the merienes tranch (lilhalphys)



Series: the house is on fire, the sky is falling [1]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Mentioned Physical Abuse, Multi, Non-Linear Narrative, Other, Pretty Much Everything That Comes With Caleb's Backstory, Underage Drinking, possibly canon divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-27
Updated: 2018-09-27
Packaged: 2019-07-18 02:45:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16109174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lilhalphys/pseuds/the%20merienes%20tranch
Summary: alt title: it would be so easyThe three of them, Caleb and Eodwulf and Astrid, are not afforded a lot of free time in their studies.





	just keep on ignoring (be a good little trout)

**Author's Note:**

> this piece was written in a flurry of emotion while i should have been asleep. i have a lot of emotions about caleb and the sheer amount of contrast between the good parts and bad parts of his life. i also really wanted to write something for critical role and this thread kept calling at me. now that its fed i can outline a big crossover au that ill never ever finish. yay.
> 
> please heed the tags! this really doesnt delve too far outside whats within caleb's backstory in terms of what would need to be warned for, but please take care of yourselves.
> 
> i did my best to try and be vague about whether it was astrid or eodwulf he was in love with both because we dont know yet and because i couldnt decide which i wanted to write. 
> 
> please enjoy!

[killing things is not so hard]

 

They are not afforded much free time in their studies. 

Under Master Ikithon’s careful hand and watchful eye they learn many things. They learn magics nigh unspeakable and the best ways to make someone talk while using them. They learn the most painful ways to kill people - alchemic poisons, necrotic curses, sometimes even the good old-fashioned pyre works just as well - and how to properly hold themselves when meeting with powerful Imperial officials.

They learn how to spend their free time, and they learn that the sunset is simply beautiful in the country.

After such exhausting days, Caleb finds himself tapped of his magical energy. He guesses that Astrid, sitting beside him, isn’t much better off. Her hair seems to glows faintly in the receding sunlight, her skin pale and translucent save for the scars and bruises, old and new, that litter her arms and face. 

They had been beaten, of course, for being so careless with their usage of their spells. The rest of the evening was theirs, then, for they held no use, to Master Ikithon or anyone, if they could not cast spells. 

Astrid says, “We killed seven people each today.”

Just yesterday, just last night, they had attended a formal dance hosted by a local lord to welcome guests from the Menagerie Coast. Master Ikithon had paraded them around, showed off their prowess and practiced posture and oh-so good behavior for the first hour before letting them go. Eodwulf had taken each of them in an arm and dragged them down the stairs and to the main dance hall, had insisted that Astrid and Caleb dance.

Astrid had said, “Wouldn’t you rather dance with Caleb?”

And Eodwulf had said, “Please, you’re both so much better at dancing than I am. I’m content to just watch.”

So they’d danced for a while, danced until Eodwulf had gotten his hands on enough alcohol to be convinced to dance himself. He really wasn’t that bad, surely better than Caleb even if the two of them both paled in comparison to Astrid and her nimble footwork.

“I just don’t know how she does it,” Eodwulf had said, whispered voice barely audible over the constant, buzzing murmur of the elite crowd even for how close he leaned into Caleb’s space. 

Caleb hadn’t responded, had found himself a bit lost in the haze of the room and the depths of Eodwulf’s eyes.

Eventually, because they were stupid Zemnian teenagers, the whole lot of them, they’d all gotten so drunk off of occasional champagne flutes and wayward wine goblets that they had to leave the party, lest they embarrass Master Ikithon and the Academy with their foolishness. 

That night, Master Ikithon had told them to prepare for a busy day tomorrow. 

And the next morning, a crowd of twenty two had been brought before the three of them. 

In the present, Caleb says, “I think you actually got eight.”

Astrid sighs, and the whole world seems to shudder around the motion, the different colored sections of sunset sky blurring together for a moment under the sheer power of her. A lock of hair falls into her face, its color only accentuating the bruise over her right eye. Caleb thinks she’d have the power, if she wanted, to graduate early. 

“Does it ever feel wrong?”

One of Caleb’s seven had been younger than him by a year or two. A girl, a half elf who begged for her life, a shrieking ball of flame whose voice tore through the air like the burning knives that Caleb had started with. A traitor.

“No,” he says. 

Astrid sighs again, though it has less of a world-shaking impact this time. Her gaze shifts from the sunset to over her shoulder, at the house sitting at the edge of the woods beside them, where Master Ikithon and Eodwulf currently reside, where Eodwulf is currently surely being beaten for being too careful and not using all his spells. She mutters a few words under her breath, flicks her wrist, and a Firebolt begins to form in her hand. 

“We could get out of here,” she says, the gravity of such a thought lost to her deadpan tone of voice and empty gaze, almost like she’s been possessed.

The spell sputters in her grasp, all but cast as she looks anywhere except Caleb’s eyes

And he’s petrified. He thinks of the elf girl and of Eodwulf in her place, and by the time he’s able to react, to try and smother the embers that gather in Astrid’s palm, the spell has already fizzled out and he’s reaching for nothing.

“It would be so easy,” she says, and they both have enough experience with the wards Master Ikithon keeps on that house to know it's not true.

 

[it’s hurting that's the hardest part]

 

They are not afforded much time, much leniency for mistakes. For lapses in concentration.

Caleb is aware of exactly five things.

He can smell smoke. Thick, heavy in the air, choking him like bacon grease smeared on the inside of his lungs. 

He can taste blood. Likely, he muses, from biting his tongue. Because he is not to scream. Because they cannot be caught. Because he does not want to be beaten.

He can feel the heat of the fire against his face, his body, his arms, his filthy fucking hands that could do such a thing. He is being baked alive, it feels like, for how hot it is, which is so funny, so funny because

Caleb can hear his parents screaming.

And in front of him, Caleb can see Eodwulf. He seems to be saying something, surely, but Caleb can’t really hear anything over the proof of his fuckup piercing the night like a church bell.

Caleb remembers that formal, a night now seeming so far away, so idealistic when matched against the here and now. 

They had left the party in a half-drunken stupor, Astrid clutching a nearly full bottle of fancy wine under her arm, Eodwulf twirling Caleb down the front steps of the manor. Their collective laughter and jovial voices had filled the otherwise silent night. 

That night, they’d agreed that, while she was inarguably the best dancer among them, Astrid just could not sing. They’d agreed that Eodwulf was the worst at holding his alcohol of them all. They’d agreed that Caleb was the very best at talking to the nobles, at getting a reaction out of them, a good one.

That night, Caleb had kissed someone for the first time and meant it.

He is awoken from his sort of stupor by Astrid running up behind him and shaking his shoulders, shouting in his ear. It doesn’t register as anything but noise. So much noise.

_ It would be so easy _ , he’d told himself as the spell components mixed in his hand, as they’d let the horse cart settle in front of the door, as the Fireball slipped from his fingers.

_ It would be so easy _ .

 

[when the wizard gets to me, i’m asking for a smaller heart]

 

Suddenly, Caleb has all the free time in the world. He does not use it well, but he won’t know as much until so many years on, until he’s got something of a real plan. 

Mostly, he peers out of the peephole-sized window he’s carved for himself, waiting for the sun to set over the countryside.

**Author's Note:**

> hoped you enjoyed! please kudos if you liked it/comment if you can!
> 
> the title of this piece along with all the little bits in brackets come from the song "trout heart replica" by amanda palmer and the grand theft orchestra.


End file.
